Heat radiating structure formed from quickly connectable U-sectioned fins

ABSTRACT

A heat radiating structure is formed from at least two sequentially connected U-sectioned fins, each of which includes a middle portion and two vertically bent sidewall portions. The middle portion is provided along two longitudinal edges with insertion holes, and the sidewall portions are correspondingly provided along outer edges with forward projected locking means. A distance by which the locking means projects from the sidewall portion is small or equal to a distance between the insertion hole and the locking means. The U-sectioned fins oriented in the same direction can be quickly connected one by one to form the heat radiating structure by inserting the locking means on a preceding U-sectioned fin into the insertion holes on a following U-sectioned fin. The connected U-sectioned fins are attached to a working heat source by means of a thermal conductive material to quickly locate the heat radiating structure in place.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to a heat radiating structure, and more particularly to a heat radiating structure formed from quickly connectable U-sectioned fins to enable quick mounting of the heat radiating structure and effective increase of the heat radiating areas.

[0002] Most of the heat radiating devices for use with a central processing unit (CPU) of a computer host or a high-power transistor are made of extruded aluminum material. FIG. 1 shows a conventional finned radiator 1 having a flat base 11, on one side of which there are provided a plurality of parallelly spaced radiating fins 12. Another side of the flat base 11 does not include any radiating fin and is attached to a surface of a working heat source, such as a CPU or a high-power transistor, so that heat produced by the working heat source during its operation is transmitted to the radiating fins 12 via the base 11 and dissipates into the ambient environment from the radiating fins 12. If it is necessary, a cooling fan may be further provided nearby the finned radiator 1 to produce airflows around the radiator 1. Thereby, the working heat source may be maintained at a proper temperature to keep stable operation thereof.

[0003] There are two major factors that have influences on the radiating effect of a radiating fin, namely, the coefficient of heat conduction of the radiating fin, as well as the surface area of the radiating fin in contact with air and the fluidity of ambient air. Among some metal materials that could be used to produce the radiating fins, copper has a coefficient of heat conduction much higher than that of aluminum. However, the cost of copper per unit weight is several times as high as that of aluminum. In consideration of the material cost, most of the currently available finned radiators are made of aluminum alloys.

[0004] With the highly developed computer technologies in recent years, people demand for further increased CPU operation speed and even enhanced power provided by the high-power transistors. While various working heat sources are designed to meet these demands, they also produce very high temperature during operation. To remove the large amount of heat produced by the working heat sources, the radiating devices have been requested to provide upgraded radiating effect. Therefore, it is an important issue among many radiating fin makers to effectively increase the air-contacting area of the radiating fins within a limited working space to enhance the overall radiating effect without increasing the manufacturing cost thereof.

[0005] In the conventional extruded aluminum finned radiator 1 shown in FIG. 1, the radiating fins 12 have thickness and spacing between them that could not be largely reduced due to limitations in molds and molding conditions for making the aluminum-extruded finned radiator. That is, under the limitations in the molds and manufacturing techniques for extruded aluminum products, the thickness and the spacing of the fins 12 of the radiator 1 having predetermined dimensions could not be ideally reduced to increase the air-contacting areas on the radiator. As a result, the conventional aluminum-extruded finned radiator 1 has only a limited radiating effect that fails to satisfy the current requirements for compact volume and high radiating efficiency of the heat-radiating devices.

[0006] Moreover, the conventional finned radiator 1 shown in FIG. 1 can only be used with a main board of a desktop computer, and requires additional fastening elements to mount it on the main board corresponding to the CPU. That is, the mounting of the conventional finned radiator 1 is very inconvenient and troublesome. When the conventional finned radiator 1 is applied to the notebook computer that has only limited mounting space, it must have a largely reduced volume and which necessitates an unfavorable increase of radiating power thereof. Moreover, the limited mounting space in the notebook computer also requires the omission of the above-mentioned fastening elements. Thus, in the currently employed techniques, bonding agent is usually used to connect the radiating means to the heat source.

[0007] It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop a novel heat radiating structure formed from quickly connectable U-sectioned fins, the number of which may be determined depending on actual need, so that the heat radiating structure can be formed at reduced cost to provide largely increased air-contacting areas and effectively upgraded radiating efficiency and effect without being restrained by molds.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0008] A primary object of the present invention is to provide a heat radiating structure formed from quickly connectable U-sectioned fins, the number of which may be decided according to actual need, to enable quick mounting of the heat radiating structure, upgraded radiating efficiency, and reduced manufacturing and mounting costs.

[0009] To achieve the above and other objects, the heat radiating structure of the present invention includes at least two sequentially connected U-sectioned fins, each of which includes a middle portion and two vertically bent sidewall portions. The middle portion is provided along two longitudinal edges with insertion holes, and the sidewall portions are correspondingly provided along outer edges with forward projected locking means. A distance by which the locking means projects from the sidewall portion is small or equal to a space between the insertion hole and the locking means. The U-sectioned fins oriented in the same direction can be quickly connected one by one to form the heat radiating structure by inserting the locking means on a preceding U-sectioned fin into the insertion holes on a following U-sectioned fin. The connected U-sectioned fins are attached to a working heat source by means of a thermal conducting agent to quickly locate the heat radiating structure in place.

[0010] To enable quick connection of one U-sectioned fin to another one, an outer end of the locking means is formed into two spaced arrow-shaped barbs to define a notch between them. The notch allows the two barbs to be elastically compressed to move toward each other for easily passing through the insertion hole.

[0011] The U-sectioned fins may be made of a general copper material, such as a red copper.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0012] The structure and the technical means adopted by the present invention to achieve the above and other objects can be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings, wherein

[0013]FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional finned radiator;

[0014]FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing a heat radiating structure formed from quickly connectable U-sectioned fins according to the present invention;

[0015]FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the heat radiating structure of the present invention formed from a plurality of the U-sectioned fins;

[0016]FIG. 4 shows a most preferred manner of using the heat radiating structure of the present invention;

[0017]FIG. 5 shows another manner of using the radiating structure of the present invention;

[0018]FIG. 6 is a sectional view taken along line A-A′ of FIG. 5; and

[0019]FIG. 7 is a sectional view taken along line B-B′ of FIG. 5.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0020] Please refer to FIG. 2 that is a perspective view showing two separated U-sectioned fins 2 for forming a heat radiating structure of the present invention. As shown, the heat radiating structure of the present invention is formed from at least two U-sectioned fins 2. The U-sectioned fin 2 is made of a sheet material having good thermal conductivity, such as copper sheet, aluminum sheet, etc., and includes a flat middle portion and two sidewall portions 21 integrally bent along and extended from two longitudinal edges of the middle portion at a right angle. The middle portion of the U-sectioned fin 2 is provided near and along the two longitudinal edges with a plurality of insertion holes 22, and the two sidewall portions 21 are formed of a plurality of forward projected locking means 23 at positions corresponding to the insertion holes 22. A distance by which a front end of the locking means 23 projects from an outer edge of the sidewall portion 21 is small or equal to a distance between the insertion hole 22 and a rear end of the locking means 23. The front end of the locking means 23 is formed into two symmetrical arrow-shaped barbs 231 spaced from each other to define a notch 232 between them. With the notch 232, the two barbs 231 could be elastically compressed to move toward each other.

[0021] Two pieces of the U-sectioned fins 2 oriented in the same direction can be quickly connected to each other by inserting the locking means 23 on the first fin 2 into the insertion holes 22 on the second fin 2, so that the two barbs 231 of each locking means 23 of the first fin 2 firmly abut against an inner surface of the middle portion at two ends of the insertion hole 22 of the second fin 2. FIG. 3 shows a plurality of the U-sectioned fins 2 are connected in the above-described manner to form a heat radiating structure of the present invention.

[0022] Please refer to FIG. 4 that shows a preferred manner of using the heat radiating structure of the present invention. The heat radiating structure formed from the U-sectioned fins is particularly designed for use in a narrow space in, for example, a notebook computer. In this case, a predetermined number of the U-sectioned fins 2 are sequentially connected beforehand in the above-described manner. The heat radiating structure so formed is then horizontally positioned on one side of a radiating plate 3 attached to a heat source (not shown) with a plane formed from the sidewall portions 21 at one side of the sequentially connected U-sectioned fins 2 flatly contacting with the radiating plate 3. A layer of thermal conductive material is applied between the heat radiating structure of the present invention and the radiating plate 3 to bond them together. And, a cooling fan 4 is mounted on the radiating plate 3 to face toward a plurality of parallel spaces formed between the adjacent U-sectioned fins 2 on the heat radiating structure. The radiating plate 3 may be fitly attached at another side at any position thereof to a top of a central processing unit (CPU) of the notebook computer to quickly transmit heat produced by the CPU to the U-sectioned fins 2. The cooling fan 4 produces airflows that quickly pass through the spaces between the U-sectioned fins 2 to carry away the heat transmitted from the radiating plate 3 to the fins 2.

[0023]FIG. 5 shows another manner of using the heat radiating structure of the present invention, and FIGS. 6 and 7 are sectional views respectively taken along lines A-A′ and B-B′ of FIG. 5. Please refer to FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 at the same time. A predetermined number of the U-sectioned fins 2 are sequentially connected beforehand in the previously described manner to form a heat radiating structure of the present invention. The heat radiating structure so formed is then vertically positioned above a working heat source 5 with the locking means 23 of the lowest fin 2 downward extended through insertion holes 52 correspondingly preformed on a member 51, such as a main board, to which the working heat source 5 is attached, so that the heat radiating structure is quickly installed on the member 51. Alternatively, the heat radiating structure may be otherwise mounted above the working heat source 5 by stacking the U-sectioned fins 2 one by one from bottom to top on the member 51.

[0024] With the above-described arrangements, the heat radiating structure formed from U-sectioned fins can be quickly and firmly assembled and mounted in particularly a notebook computer to radiate heat produced by the CPU to overcome the problem of mounting space.

[0025] Moreover, the U-sectioned fin 2 can be manufactured without being restricted by the technique of making injection-molding molds. That is, the U-sectioned fin 2 may have a largely reduced thickness and the space needed to mount the heat radiating structure formed therefrom is reduced, accordingly. In other words, the heat radiating structure of the present invention includes more pieces of U-sectioned thin fins in one unit area to produce increased air-contacting areas, and therefore provides largely enhanced heat radiating effect while meets the current requirement for minimized volume of the radiating fins.

[0026] When the present invention is employed on the main board of a general desktop computer, threaded holes may be correspondingly provided on the surface of a topmost or all U-sectioned fins 2 for mounting a cooling fan thereto with screws.

[0027] The heat radiating structure formed from u-sectioned fins according to the present invention has at least the following advantages:

[0028] 1. All the U-sectioned fins 2 have the same simple structure, enabling the fins 2 to be easily produced and quickly mounted. Since the fins 2 do not require high manufacturing accuracy, the production and installation costs thereof can be largely reduced.

[0029] 2. The U-sectioned fins 2 have reduced thickness to enable increased number of fins 2 in the same unit area and accordingly largely increased air-contacting areas to provide enhanced heat radiating effect.

[0030] 3. The U-sectioned fins 2 can be sequentially connected one by one without using additional fastening elements to further reduce the installation cost thereof. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A heat radiating structure, comprising at least two U-sectioned fins, each said U-sectioned fin including a flat middle portion and two sidewall portions bent along and extended from two longitudinal edges of said middle portion at a right angle; said middle portion being provided near and along the two longitudinal edges with a plurality of insertion holes, and said two sidewall portions being formed of a plurality of forward projected locking means at positions corresponding to said insertion holes; a distance by which a front end of said locking means projecting from an outer edge of said sidewall portion being small or equal to a distance between said insertion hole and a rear end of said locking means; the front end of said locking means being formed into two symmetrical barbs spaced from each other to define a notch therebetween; said notch enabling said two barbs to be elastically compressed toward each other; whereby said at least two U-sectioned fins, when being oriented in the same direction, can be quickly connected to one another to form said heat radiating structure by inserting said locking means on a preceding U-sectioned fin into said insertion holes on a following U-sectioned fin.
 2. The heat radiating structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein said barbs formed at the front end of said locking means are in the shape of an arrow.
 3. The heat radiating structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein said U-sectioned fins are made of a copper material.
 4. The heat radiating structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein said U-sectioned fins are made of a red copper material. 